Dennis Yu and I were in Dallas this week to speak at the Align Volleyball Summit, and before the conference the Texas Flight Crew and I rented out a court for a session. Eight of us got reps in. The session went off. And then I pulled Cam Hazzard aside for a mini Dunk Talk episode while we still had the lights on.
If you haven’t heard the name yet, you will. Cam is one of the 24 dunkers Shaq hand-picked for the new DunkMan League this summer. He is 20 years old, out of Little Elm, Texas, has a 50-inch verified vertical, and is one of fewer than 10 people on the planet who can land a 360 under both legs.
The Session That Set Up This Mini Episode
I asked Cam how he felt the session went.
“Honestly I hit some things I wanted to hit. I didn’t hit everything though. I was probably around 85%. I played some basketball yesterday. I was a little bit sore, but not too sore. So I’m happy with the result, but know I could do better.”
Cam came in a day after a basketball game and still threw down a 360 under both, a 360 inverter, a 540, and a long list of other dunks on a legit ten-foot rim. He graded himself at 85%, which lines up with what I saw in person.
How Cam Got Into Dunking
One of the things I try to do on every episode of Dunk Talk is get the actual origin story instead of the resume. Cam’s is short and clean. He was obsessed with dunking as a kid, tried random tricks for hours, hit nothing crazy. Then he landed his first 360 windmill and the obsession turned into a plan.
Right after the windmill, he went to Dunk Camp in 2023, where he met Isaiah Rivera, Jordan Kilganon, Jordan Southerland, and Donovan Hawkins for the first time. As Cam tells it, Donovan was the one who really pushed him over the edge:
“He did an episode on his YouTube channel reacting to my subscribers’ dunks. I sent in some of my stuff, he reached out to me and was like, ‘You have to start an Instagram.’ He was like, ‘You’re jumping too high not to post.’ So he’s the one who got me started, and then from there on I just kept posting, kept getting better.”
Every dunker I have interviewed on Dunk Talk has a version of that moment. One veteran sees the vertical, tells them to start posting, and the rest is reps.
The 2K to 19K Content Shift
Cam went from 2,000 to 3,000 followers in November to 10K by the end of Christmas break, and is at almost 19K now.
I asked him what changed:
“I had about 2,000, 3,000 followers back in November, and I was just posting my dunk clips with some gym bro music. Just see what the most popular is, put it over it. And then over Christmas break I had nothing to do. I got back from college and I was like, ‘Let’s just see where I could take this.’ So I posted daily, started putting more effort, and by the end I got 10,000 followers.”
The bigger insight is the kind of content he shifted to:
“I found that if I just make more relatable content, less one-off cool trick dunk stuff, make it more relatable, I would get more followers.”
Contextless one-off clips are the easiest thing to scroll past, and they don’t build a connection with the audience. They might pick up views, but they don’t grow a following. It took me three years on my own channel to land on this. Cam figured it out in one Christmas break. He wrote about a separate interview with Dennis Yu from the same Dallas trip too.
Getting the Call From Shaq
The timing on Cam’s DunkMan League selection is wild. He had just had surgery on his broken hand when Shaq called. Three days post-op.
“I was reached out to. I was, It was random. I just broke my hand. I got surgery literally three days after getting the call from Chuck. So I was just starting off with my injury. Chuck called me, put me in the league, and I’m ready for it.”
Cam got the call mid-rehab and his first thought was getting ready for the summer. He rebuilt the hand and kept posting through the whole rehab window.
Top 24 and the Competitive Reality
I asked Cam how it felt being announced in the top 24, knowing he is going up against guys he watched as a kid:
“I mean it’s definitely surreal. Getting posted on Shaq’s account is just like, man, just now seeing this. But I’m always like refreshing the page, seeing who’s on DunkMan next ’cause I’m wanting to see some big names out there so I can really show who I am.”
The dunk community has historically been collaborative. Everyone shows up to each other’s sessions and pushes each other higher. Cam wants to see how that holds up when $500,000 is actually on the line:
“I’m interested to see how this acts when there’s money on the line. See how people are.”
That is the question I am most excited to see answered this summer. Does a sport that has been collaborative for years stay collaborative when the prize pool is real. I also wrote up my personal takeaways from filming this session on my own site, and Dennis covered the marketing-lens version of the same trip.
What’s Next for Cam
Goals for the year are simple. Top five in DunkMan, ideally first. After that, more sponsorships, more international contests, and turning the publicity from the league into a long-term brand. Cam is also a sophomore at Abilene Christian University on a 4.0 GPA, triple-majoring in Information Systems, Accounting, and Finance, so the business side is being built in parallel. He has a Summer 2026 internship lined up at Treaty Oak Financial in Austin between dunk sessions.
We are going to do a full longer episode soon to go through Cam’s entire story. The signature 360 under both, the Dunk Camp journey, the academic side, and what the DunkMan League looks like as it kicks off. If you want to make sure you do not miss it, subscribe to Dunk Talk on YouTube and follow Cam on the platforms linked above.
Who do you think takes the $500K? Drop a comment with your pick, and tune in to DunkMan this summer on TNT to find out who is right.